#14 Read-Watch-Listen

Read

What Bobby Mcilvaine Left Behind: Grief, conspiracy theories, and one family’s search for meaning in the two decades since 9/11

By Jennifer Senior, The Atlantic

Grief can split up families, probably faster than money can. This article is about the author’s friends family and her interviews with them to mark 9/11’s 20th anniversary. She writes about them beautifully. I think what makes all the difference with these articles is when the writer knows the subjects so intimately. The story is about a family who lost their son, brother, fiance and friend, Bobby Mcilvaine. Part of the story is about Bobby’s girlfriend refusing to give up on of his diaries and you feel so much hate towards her because you only know and hear his mother’s side until the end. The article does a great job of helping you understand the grief of two very different people and understand why they acted the way they did. It’s amazing how quick forgiveness can hit you while reading an article about other people’s pain.

The article brings up an analogy about grief: “Imagine that you’re all at the top of a mountain, but you all have broken bones, so you can’t help each other. You each have to find your own way down.” This is what processing grief is like. The writer consults with a therapist to ask if this is a good way in understanding grief and their reaction is wise “that assumes that everyone makes it down.” Some people never get off that mountain, or they get stuck halfway through or create a trail that is just a continuous loop of conspiracy theories. The thing about going down a mountain is that you rarely have a good idea of how far down you’ve gotten until you’ve reached the bottom.

Watch

John Mulaney Tells Seth About His Eventful year

By John Mulaney and Seth Meyers, Late Night with Seth Meyers

When I think of John Mulaney I think of the opening scene of Blue Velvet. (You mean, Blue Velvet that film with Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan that sparked hipsters being obsessed with Pabst Blue Ribbon? Why yes, yes exactly that film). It starts off with pristine images of life in the 50s, white picket fence, children going to school, friendly neighbourhood firefighters, and then slowly digresses into images of guns and a pipe that’s about to burst and a man having what looks like a heart attack.

John Mulaney’s schtick is this: a man who was meant to live in the 50s was born as a millennial who used to have a coke addiction but now has a jewish wife and a bulldog named petunia. And we all loved him for it.

I got wrapped up in the celebrity gossip of John Mulaney. I will hold my hands up to this and say that I spent far too much time thinking about it, rewatching old videos with the excuse that I would include something about it in my newsletter. I remember watching an interview with him last year and thought “that guy is not doing well.” There’s been a few articles about why people cared so much and about para-social relationships (where fans have disillusioned beliefs that they’re friends with celebrities) but I don’t think it’s relevant. People have been long obsessed with celebrity gossip and it’s nothing new.

John Mulaney is known as a clean comic, ie. he doesn’t swear and most of his jokes are self deprecating, and situational - leaning into how awkward human interactions can be. Mulaney has an ability to describe very specific awkward situations in your life which may contribute to his fans caring a bit too much about the recent flurry of gossip about him, because it feels like he understands them. One example of this for me is the specificity in which he describes a young girls slumberparty where one of the girls gets bullied because her friends mom forced her daughter to invite her when she didn’t really want to and then the girl ends up calling her mom to pick her up at like midnight and the other girls dad has to wait with her until she gets picked up.

What I think is overlooked is that amongst these amazing jokes is that he weaves in that he’s an addict without having any effect on your perception of him. In his SNL monologues he casually admitted smoking crack and how he regularly did cocaine; but It all just seams to wash away amongst all the other clean and oddly specific jokes. In someways it adds to his on-stage character of young man stuck in a suit from the 50s. He’s done well in building this character by dressing a certain way, having a slick haircut and talking about his wife and adorable dog.

I include these videos because I think there is still an interesting conversation going on about the people we look up to and reconciling that they have flaws - and that that is okay. I think it’s also a good counter point to the Watch in my last newsletter by Contrapoints. The interview with Mulaney seems to be doing something similar albeit in a very different tone to the self-awareness “blessed” tweet by Kim Kardashian about her 40th birthday party on an island somewhere. The trend of celebrities trying to get in front of the audience/fans reactions by communicating their self-awareness up front isn’t new, it’s basic PR. However, the message seems a bit different. The way I see it is this: the tweets and messages like Kim Kardashian’s fit into the white picket fences of the world in Blue Velvet, we role our eyes and scream “we get it already!” Whereas the messages like Mulaney’s, very much fit in the pipe bursting, grass, insect riddled dirt side of Blue Velvet where we are a bit disgusted and worried but also can’t look away.

Listen

All Eyes on Me

By Bo Burnham, Inside

Speaking of comedians who have deep anxiety and panic attacks and all too invested fanbase, the listen for this week is Bo Burnham’s album Inside. I’d also recommend watching the whole thing on Netflix as the visual elements are great, especially for his song Welcome to the Internet and White Girl Instagram. The one song that has been stuck in my head is All Eyes on Me which is why it’s the listen for this week. Midway through the song he goes into detail about why he stopped doing standup for 5 years and how when he decided to come back to the stage, the pandemic set in. This of course then led to him locking himself in a room until he finished the album - which I think most people have agreed turned out amazing. Probably a better move than taking up a cocaine . Part of me hopes that he called this song All Eyes On Me so that people would just start listening to Tupac more.

Part of the lyrics go “I got so much better, in fact, that in January of 2020 I thought, ‘You know what? I should start performing again…I’ve been hiding from the world and I need to re-enter.‘ And then, the funniest thing happened…” This felt very apt for my situation these last few weeks of coming back refreshed from holiday to then all of sudden getting sick and having to stay inside for 10 days. As more people spent time on the internet after being forced to stay inside for long bouts of time, this album is great fodder for reflecting on the content we passively consume without giving much thought to them.